Reviews

4 Reviews
Sort by:
Filter by Rating:
8/10
Disturbing, impressing, disgusting, funny... and even teaching
25 August 2009
I can't say I was a great Tarantino fan - though I like "Pulp Fiction". And I am German, which might be an interesting fact reviewing a movie about killing Germans (equaled to being Nazis). And - with a night gone by and time to think about it - I appreciate this one as well.

Because I hate stories dividing the characters into "good ones" and "baddies", drawing forth the line of good-prevailing-over-evil-tales just once more. Those are often the ones whose heroes can serve as models for a one-sided point of view and violence as means of a solution to a problem. In this movie almost everyone is or at least intends to become a murderer, fully justified by his or her own point of view as it seems. This leads to an excess of violence, cruelty and retaliation which, I was a little surprised to become aware of, had quite a disturbing effect on me. It's not that I wasn't used to bloody war movies (finding it inadequate to conceal the atrocities of war). But the unscrupulous way of (over)killing, this continuous mistreating of other human beings - consequently dehumanized by their killers - ends up in a kind of nightmare where there are no "good ones" anymore. It really urged me to think about the way we are treating others, how small the gap to the "dark side" is. How suddenly the feeling changes from desire for revenge to compassion with the punished. Wrath is more than comprehensible but hatred and revenge lead to a disastrous Nemesis. (Even the average American might know about the infamous Nazi-German "Vergeltungsmaßnahmen" (retaliation actions), often against civilians. Or take a look at the middle east. It's a vicious circle.) You could even call it a spiritual movie this way... weird way of delivering the message though...

This has nothing to do with my nationality: I would have said the same if it was a film about Germans killing Russians or Jews - f****d up all the same! But maybe I could identify even more with the "baddies" this time. Tarantino fosters feelings of empathy for them (for a soldier, trying to protect his comrades or for a father, trying to stay alive to see his new-born son), partly even more than for the members of the Basterds. So I suppose it's intended to blur the borders this way. Great job! In addition the multinational casting and the different spoken languages do an incredible job creating a tense atmosphere! Thumbs up!

Great job of course by Christoph Waltz as well, I must agree! His action alone is worth watching the movie, awesome!!! I wasn't bored by the longer dialog parts - other than in "Death Proof" I don't regard them as unnecessary. And they serve as counterparts to the actions scenes. I'd say it's still quite a bloody one (and I can understand everyone disgusted by such gore) but very well worth watching - and thinking about it.
3 out of 10 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Die Brücke (2008 TV Movie)
2/10
If you ever happen to get your hands on this one...
1 October 2008
... consider it an accident and look for the - really impressive - original! You will spare yourself quite a lousy piece of love story and war action rudely looted from the heritage of the 50's version by Bernhard Wicki. Even Hollywood barely could do worse twisting historical facts and life stories into some sort of spectacular fireworks performed by characters who don't really deserve this description. Good war movies (such as the original one!) should include the stories of the human beings involved, narrated in an empathic way thus helping the viewer to understand or at least imagine how it might have come to all the cruelty - and maybe even how it could be overcome. Otherwise there will be sown rather fascination than consternation. The next war will come too soon anyway. 2/10 just because of occasionally good acting (esp. by the soldier boys) and seemingly accurate requisites (uniforms, armory...).
21 out of 28 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
5/10
Any Predator in the theater would have blown it up in despair
15 November 2004
When I entered the theater I expected the worst: my nice little Aliens and Predator universes being dismantled by some sort of commercial sell-out. Er, ... exactly that happened. BUT to my surprise the two monster characters had even enough great aspects to save my evening from being a complete disaster. Right, the dialogues were quite ridiculous far too often. The shape-shifting of the pyramid seemed a very stupid idea to me – why the hell should the predators have invested such an amount of energy, know-how and time in a construction like this? They are supposed to be hunters, not scientists! The alliance with a human being on the other hand is a nice idea if you ask me, as long as the Predator has some good reason to respect the others' fighting capabilities, cause only this way one seems to earn his right to live in their view. So if this human can fight, why shouldn't she be respected?

Another funny idea came to me watching the Predators dressed in their thongs walking antarctic territory: ever heard a Predator sneezing? – Must be a funny sound! Don't catch a cold out there, man! Up to now it was said they prefer REALLY hot summers... But I have to conclude: this movie is really a damn sell-out. Nearly all the elements of tension and atmosphere that made the earlier movies the legends they are today are missing: the facehuggers almost haven't fallen off their hosts' faces when the babies burst out – no incubation at all, compare this to 'Alien 1'! The predators don't behold anymore – they prefer making a mess wherever they pass by. The Aliens' blood that was capable of burning holes in a number of decks (!) on the 'Nostromo' has turned now into some kind of skincare, as our hero is marked by her companion from outer space: she takes no damage, does not even squeak. Things like these disintegrate the great pictures of the two species drawn by others in their superb movies before. And therefore I really dislike this crap!!! The cuts of the battle scenes are often indeed far too quick to recognize anything – you could as well have saved the money for a better script and shown a black screen with some 'uh', 'ouch', 'kaboom' and 'inkelklink'. On the other hand the camera has caught some wonderful scenes: the icebreaker in full moon night, the flare sliding down the unknown tunnel, very atmospheric I can say! So the scenery has been chosen fine (if the predators had had some thermos pants), the historical story is a nice idea I might say, apart from this awfully plump melting of three ancient cultures and their languages even in single inscriptions without the slightest difficulty to read for someone who only knows some parts of the younger civilizations. Again, scenes like these flatten the whole plot (to lowest Hollywood level). If there ever will be a sequel the fans may really expect a reparation for this one!
1 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
U-571 (2000)
3/10
Maximum depth reached (and exceeded).
6 September 2004
Honestly, this is BY FAR the most stupid U-boat movie I have ever seen and just a further example for a really sick attitude of making movies. Historical facts ('Enigma' was captured on board U-110 by a boarding crew from the British destroyer HMS Bulldog) or technical aspects (e.g. only Hollywood's heroes are able to hit an enemy sub that is showing it's smallest silhouette with a non-guided torpedo, even without any aiming!!!) – whatever it may be: it becomes twisted until the good ones win. There is an endless list of ridiculous behavior of the characters (stripping them of any personality at all), technical stupidities or other moments of amazing idiocy. So what is left is some kind of aseptic fiction picture with a quite predictable story. O.k., if you like that – have fun. Apart from that I found at least TWO nice things to this movie:

(1) the idea with the faked U-boat seems at least uncommon and quite interesting to me and (2) the view at the boat from below while evading exploding depth charges above is a really nice shot (if you forget about the fact, that you surely could see nothing at all in this depth by normal means…).

Er, well ... that's all about the positive points.
4 out of 10 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed